WELLINGTON ITEMS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVIII, Issue 13001, 17 December 1902, Page 5

WELLINGTON ITEMS.

[From Odr Correspondent.! ■WELLINGTON, Dec. 15

In the Compensation Court to-day Sir Waiter Bullcr’s claim for £IO,OOO for property taken by the Post Office was not made good to the Court’s satisfaction. The Court awarded £6655; with £BO costs, each party paying its own assessor fifteen} guineas, the rents since the proclamation to go to the- claimant. The case has caused a great deal of interest in town during tho last few days. There was the usual difference between export valuers as to value. On a basis of actual sales as given in Court a surveyor worked out averages per acre of £38,741 to £75,959, and the Buller claim for £IO,OOO at £299,000. A sale on Saturday of the Imperial Chambers, one of the best business sites in town, and another property-were not, of course, included in these calculations. Those were record sales' at the rate of £120,000 and £185,000 respectively per acre. It is clear that values are going up with leaps and bounds, and that Sir Walter Buller, who gave £31501 for the property some ten or twelve years ago, and lias received 10 per cent in rent ever since, has not clone at all badly out of the property. Cool-beaded men are talking of inflation and the probable results,) but equally cool-headed men declare firmly that values are very solid. Mr Hayes, Superintending Engineer of the Mines Department, who has been in charge of the State collieries for some time,: has returned to Wellington. He reports! that very satisfactory progress has been made in opening up the properties. WELLINGTON, Dec. 16.

To-day the first collision for many years occurred on the Te Aro railway line. A horse in a. milk cart began jibbing a.s the early train was coming down Jervois Quay and backed the cart on to the line in front of the train. There was a smash, hull neither horse nor man was hurt. Ihe incident reminds one of the passionate protests made in Parliament when this line was first opened, and of the predictions of frequent disasters, but the years have gone by, the trains have run daily through the crowded! thoroughfares at the foot of the wharves, nothing has been done to fence the. track,, yet until to-dav there has not been one accident. The record is creditable to the Railway Department. • ■